Big announcement today out of Alaska: The Federal Subsistence Board (FSB), the body charged with managing subsistence hunting and fishing on Alaska’s public lands and waters, restored the Organized Village of Saxman to “rural community status,” thereby making members once again eligible for priority harvest of fish and game.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) grants a harvest priority of fish and game on public lands, but this priority is only extended to “rural communities.” In 2006, under political pressure from the State, the FSB terminated Saxman’s rural status and grouped the village in with the city of Ketchikan. Represented by NARF, Saxman later filed suit to restore its rural status, but parties settled the case in favor of today’s administrative fix.